Woven from Memories

With its current showcase, Leica Gallery Paris presents a deeply personal series by Ismail Ferdous, who was honoured with the Leica Oskar Barnack Award (LOBA) in 2023. For this project the photographer, who now lives in the U.S., returned to Cox’s Bazar – his childhood beach on the southern-most tip of his native Bangladesh.

Stretched along the Bay of Bengal, it is a popular destination for the country’s inhabitants, and known as a melting pot of different cultures. People from all walks of life flock to these shores for downtime and relaxation. Ismail Ferdous has captured the unique atmosphere of this multi-cultural microcosm. The resulting portrait series is reminiscent of a studio shoot, captured with flash in the medium format – yet with the backdrop being one of the longest beaches in the world.

“Sea Beach is woven from my childhood memories,” the photographer explains, adding: “I first visited Cox’s Bazar as a young boy. It was my parents’ first holiday together. While we were there, my grandmother said to me, ‘Don’t go too deep into the water, you can’t swim.’ When my mother encouraged me to play in the waves, her sari catching the breeze, I’d hear my grandmother’s reprimands. It wasn’t until adulthood that I braved the water and swam.”